Employees of Sobha Developers - Liars

Sobha is like any other builder, although they call themselves world class builder. They have sales personnel who have no commitment and promise moon to the buyer and disappear from the company. The employee attrition is main reason for customer grievance. Sobha Sunscape is supposed to be a Dream series project and they do not allow any modification like change of tiles etc. in spite of the buyer willing to pay the difference.

As regards project completion, know one knows when it would be handed over. However, we promptly get the demand notices and even one day delay in realization of cheque, interest would be charged. I don't what access road the sunscape project would have as today there is no proper road to the building from Kanakapura road or NICE road.

Sobha Developers never keeps it promises

Grievance by Natraj:

I booked a flat with Sobha in Bangalore early 2007.

1. For one, it is supposed to be a “super luxury” series with good carpet area and ample scope for customization. But in reality, I was very disappointed with the fittings. For example, all the sanitaryware are in white no matter the floor/tile color. If you want to change them, Sobha charges an arm and a leg (see later on customization)

2. Insist on seeing the Sale and Construction agreement BEFORE you give the deposit amount!! But, I bet the sales guy will dodge your request. There are lot of hidden clauses which make it totally a one sided agreement.

3. Sobha hates to accommodate any changes! In fact, the construction agreement has this one sided clause which says that if you many any mods/changes from the original specification, they are not obligated to pay ANY compensation in case of delay in handing over, regardless of the how long the delay is.

4. In spite of this, if you are bold and make any changes, they charge a hefty amount. It is actually a money making scam. For example, they charged 3 times the amount for upgrading the EWC (toilet) from Hindware white to Parryware color!!! And they are least bothered when you bring this to their notice. There attitude is: your neck is now in our hands, scream all you want!!!

5. The project is already delayed. The latest dates they have communiated to me is July 2009!! This is at least nearly 1.5 years late!!!

They have been blaming everybody but themselves for it. I feel they don’t give a damn about residential projects anymore… It is a necessary nuisance for them. Their focus is on commercial properties now.

As far as I am concerned, Sobha is no longer the desired choice when it comes to residential real estate.

My strong suggestion is for the customers to rally together and sue them in a court of law. I am sure we have a strong case.

Theft by Sobha Developers

We received this Grievance by Anjan Ghosh:

I have had a similar issue. I put down a deposit on the condition that they arrange finance for me (I am an Indian living abroad), the booking form said that they would take 0% in event of cancellation. However I found out that they rejected the booking form agreement, however they still went ahead and cashed my cheque. I cancelled before they cashed the cheque (it takes over a month for the transfer to happen from the UK bank) however they are still skimming off Rs.75,000 from my deposit.

This amounts to theft, so I am talking to the authorities to start up a fraud case against them. However, I would not recommending doing business with them. The Sales Manager Mr Anil (Bangalore) stated in front of independent witnesses that "as Head of Sales I have decided to return the full amount", despite which they are still scamming me for Rs. 75,000.

Prospetive Buyer Feedback

Hello,

Reading all that's on this blogs sends a massive shock wave down my spine..! Is there any way we can bring it to the notice of the top officials.?!?!? Trust me property developers are the same every where thru out India. I am from Singapore, now trying to invest some buck on a property back home. But I am worried how things are going to be..!
Real estate seems to be scary to invest, u will never be sure of what u r getting. to top it all the legal system in India screws every thing up..!

You cant claim anything from any body for damages faced. ‘Professional Negligence’ is to the core in construction industry. None perform their job, all risks are transferred to the buyer.

I don't have any hope.. this is not gonna change in recent future.

Thank u all, for the information about the developers back home in India…!

Delays in handover of projects by Sobha Developers

Sobha Developers had promised to deliver Sobha Iris in March 2007 which got delay to September 2007 and then Feb 2008.

In fact now it has been delayed to July 2008. I don't think they should be called reputed builders because a good builder would have done good planning. I'm not sure whether their quality is good these days. It used to be good in 2002 days when the demand was less.

Conclusion is : Make sure you read the sale agreement properly for any delays etc. and look at their past one year track record. I would disagree if Sobha Developers are called reputed. I don't know about other properties but couple of friends got their possession on time but it was in 2005. May be there is a common problem in delivering projects on time these days. Hmmm.....After all it's an ugly business.

Careful About Payments to be made to Sobha Developers

Hear is a sad story from a customer of Sobha Developers, S Acharya.

I was supposed to book Sobha basil , about a year back. I went ahead , got all documentation done, put in the hard earned booking amount of 4 lakhs.

To my dismay, Sobha couldn't furnish a couple of docs which needed disbursal of the loan. I had to wait for 6 months , and then decided to withdraw.

That was a good decision , but Sobha has its conditions too. They cut off Rs 50,000 on my cheque. I was so unimpressed , i just wanted to get off their tantrums and false promises. Yes it did hurt me, but then i was moving to the US, and took that loss.

In the future, everyone, pls read all docs before signing up.

Last I have realized, a house is a liability. If its an Asset for me, it should be a Liability for the builder. Thats actually not so.

Today, I believe that one should buy, when the markets are down. These builders who have risen the wave of good funding, will only goof up things, cause they dont care an iota about customer satisfaction.

Another similar complaint from Samir Singh:

I am ready to contribute to sue Sobha Developers in court of law. My case is similar and now they are asking me to pay Rs. 1 lakh as interest charges - which is increasing day by day (as I am not paying the same for the last 4 months - after I came to knew that there are interest charges on me).

Those who all are interested please mail me and I will try to see how to go about it (currently I am in US and that is the major constraint for me).

Dissatifaction from false assurances Given by Sobha Developers

I came across this below complaint from an existing customer of Sobha Developers, Swetasri Choudhury. I hope this information below helps someone out there.

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Sobha Developers Limited in Bangalore is well-known for building quality residential properties. Their reputation is wide-spread in Bangalore. And so, when we wanted to buy an apartment we chose to consider a Sobha property. We looked at several properties built by Sobha and were impressed.

After elaborate financial arrangements, we booked an apartment at Sobha Sunscape in July. We were in fact not ready yet and needed 3-4 weeks more time so that we could arrange for the initial payment. The sales-person assured us he would extend the time and persuaded us to make the booking. As a family we were pleased we could pool in our resources and buy an apartment from a good builder. After the loan was sanctioned by the bank, it was a sense of achievement that everything was in place and we were realizing our dream of having our own home.

We made the initial payment to Sobha which was partly from own funds and partly from the loan. After about a month, we received the demand from Sobha for payment for the next slab. This was the starting point for the surprises. In addition to the slab payment, Sobha also demanded interest on delayed payments. Over the last few weeks we have had several communications with Sobha on this matter and to put it mildly our experience has been disappointing. As a result of the rigourous communications, Sobha partly reduced the interest charges. The sales-person has backed out from honouring the rest of his assurance.

On analyzing the transactions, we found discrepancies too. Our bank had disbursed a lesser amount per their recommendation after assessing of the project progress. Sobha mentioned they were correct in their demand. They wanted us to produce a letter from the bank with this information and promised to act on the same. After we produced the letter, they stated that they would not consider it. We felt deceived. Why did they want the letter if they were not to consider it? We noticed that in the cases where we had handed the cheque to their sales-person, Sobha had recorded it only on the next day. Hence, they charged the interest for an extra day. On one instance the courier was delivered on the Saturday, they recorded the transaction on Tuesday.

We expect honesty from reputed companies. Sadly, my experience with Sobha has been different. As a customer of Sobha, my interaction with their people has caused me disappointment. For a reputed company, Sobha is not righteous in its policies. While they charge the customer interest at 18% by reflecting delays, they exempt themselves from any delays. They carefully do not commit any slab dates, so no delays come upon them. To my frustration, when I offered to make future payments in advance to counter some of the interest charged to me, they refused to account the advance in the same way.

At the outset, in spite of being confident that Sobha will deliver to me an impressive apartment and in spite of paying a premium price for that apartment, I'm afraid their trivializing ways have tarnished the pleasure of owning a Sobha property. As Sobha's customer, I have been through a false assurance; a false commitment leading me to obtain information from my bank; penalties for transactions incorrectly recorded by them and subjected to unfavourable policies.

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Sobha Developers CRM - Creative Reasoning and Manipulation

Hi Everyone,

I purchased a Sobha property (really expensive- more than Rs. 1 crore.) one about a year back. My experience with them has been very bad. Few things that I want to mention are:

1. Yes, the 18% penalty is applicable even if the delay is no fault of yours. In my case, they sent the communication to the wrong address!!

2. Their quality has come down many notches in the last 10 years. They seem stand lesser and lesser for quality.

3. Read all the agreements very carefully. There are bent to be changes in the square footage, power backup, common area specification etc. The final “sale doc” you sign may not be the same as the one shown by the sales person. Make sure to go through the “Specifications” with a fine toothed comb.

3. I had to point out many flaws in the construction stage itself in my house to get it rectified. Many of the flaws were never rectified as there was no written record of the request. So keep in mind, while dealing with Sobha have everything in writing.

4. On the day of the possession I realized that I was being charged more than necessary. I pointed this out and later got my money back after a tussle with the top management.

5. They have a tendency to go back on their word as far as common facilities go. For example, our pool was not functioning even during handover.

6. The worst part of dealing with Sobha was how greedy their workers were. They know that we are people who will pay that little extra for quality (at least that is the assumption by buying a Sobha). At every instance- electrical, plumbing etc. they will try to make that extra buck. I got the feeling that the workers deliberately left these loopholes in to make that extra buck. Worst case is that even the Project managers will get a cut out of the money the plumber/electrician/painter etc makes. BEWARE OF THEIR PLUMBERS IN PARTICULAR.

7. Before taking possession make sure that everything is in working condition and complete. Here, look at the completion of the project mainly instead of your apartment. My case- my house is done, my project is still going on more than a year down the line!!! Be firm, do not get entangled in their tactics of “sir, please take possession NOW because of …….” . You may fill in the blanks, they do come up with some very creative reasons.

8. Post possession and occupation, be ready to deal with their CRM Dept. In most companies CRM is Customer Relationship Management, in Sobha it is Creative Reasoning and Manipulation. Most of them have no idea how to deal with customers. In case anyone from Sobha is reading, how about hiring some people from the hospitality sector to give some class to your team. Most of the CRM team is freshers right out of college and with no powers. This is when you wish you never bought a Sobha.

9. Be ready to realize that the money Sobha took to maintain the property as Maintenance deposit is not enough to cover anything. They keep this amount really low so that they can sell the property.

10. Last but not the least, their promise of 1 year of maintenance after possession is total bullshit. They do not maintain the property for free. It is usually digging into your corpus or asking you to cough up money so that we are forced to live with their good-for-nothing staff for 1 year. Most of this staff happens to have no background other than being uneducated relatives of Sobha employees who could not get jobs anywhere else. Maybe, this is in tune with Mr. Menon’s way of taking care of the poor and useless.

An Unhappy and Disgruntled Sobha Customer

Sobha Developers - Be careful in dealing with Sobha - Lack or No Transparency

It has come to our notice that Sobha and other developers are not being very transparent in their dealings. Suggest all to seek original proofs/receipts (specially financials). Heard that SDL is not willing to share the proof of Service Tax submission with the customers and are keeping quiet when people are asking for refund. Heard that lots of Sobha customers are trying to get to talk to their MD, but they are not being allowed to go beyond CRM.

Suggest all customers to ask for the details of each financial transactions. Get the commitment of water supply (in Bangalore specially). It seems SDL gives fake promise about water and customers spend 3-4 k per flat to get tanker water. Check the BWSSB, KEB, all hardware purchase receipt, STP MSA etc. Go as one unit instead of seeking this individually. Heard that they are very stingy in refunding money...so better go as one unit and demand all these. If anyone has any official statement of service tax return, please post. Not sure whether SDL used to perform the same way as they are doing today. Kind of arrogance in their dealing (post sales). Doubt whether they act in a similar fashion with corporate customers (definitely not).

Sobha Developers - Highly unethical company

Booked a Flat in Sobha Dreams Project 2 years back the Project is suppose to be completed in March 2007. They delayed the project for almost 2 years. The real issues is that Sobha launches project that does not have any approvals from BDA.

After 2 years of waiting they dropped the project and for all the customers who have booked on this project they offer a 3% discount on existing projects on the current rates. The prices have skyrocketed almost 100-150% since we booked.

And its highly unethical on Sobha developers part to do such business most of the customers has gone legal and few even complained to DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS Here is Sobha’s act on they unethical behaviour even to DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS.

Never trust Sobha, even thier IPO documents show that they are persuing Sobha Dreams project, which is completely untrue. Looks like Sobha Developer are so indifferent that they don’t even bother to reply even to the Government of India.

Here is the snippet from the Government of India
The General Manager
M/s Sobha Developers,
368, 7th Cross,
Wilson Garden,
Bangalore (Karnataka)
PIN-560027

Subject: Complaint of Ms. XXXXXX

Dear Sir,

Kindly refer to our earlier letter on the above cited subject. It is most unfortunate that an organization of your repute has not responded till date to the complaint. We would request you to respond to this matter at the earliest and in case you have not received the earlier mail, kindly find the attached letter for your immediate action. We are confident, you will agree that resolving complaints is of great value for you and needs prompt attention to have a satisfied customer.

In case we fail to receive your response within a fortnight of the receipt of this letter, we shall have no other option but to make your attitude public in terms of dealing with your customer complaints and to advise complainant to initiate legal action. We hope you will treat this matter as most urgent and do the needful. Kindly mention the reference number given above, for any future correspondence with us.

Thanking You,
Yours Sincerely,
XXXXX Manager – Complaints

Encl: As above Copy to: For information and necessary action please. 1. The Under Secretary Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi.

Incomplete Promises ~ Never Abide by agreements

I bought an apt from Sobha, yet to be completed. In my experience:

1. Sobha’s employees are very poor and reluctant in communications. I need to send several emails or few phone calls to elicit any response for any of my queries.

2. Eventually somebody answers to our satisfaction but the response is not immediate. May be that is the Indian way of professionalism.

3. Sobha is very very strict with due dates for payments. Even a single day delay would attract 18% penalty.

4. They collect almost 100% of payment except for registration cost atleast 6 months before completion. We need to wait minimum 6 months or more after paying 100% of the cost of apartment

5. The exteriors, paints and landscaping are not seem to be not so great that matches the money, but the hassle free and quality names give them the premium.

6. The choice of selection for interiors like colors and varieties of tiles, bath features, electrical appliances etc are very very limited. We have to choose from a tiny list that are not meeting our tastes, We are forced to settle down with unsatisfactory selection of tiles, colors, doors, bathroom fixtures etc. For the huge money they collect they could be more accommodating and offer a wider range to choose from.

Since I’ve not taken possession could not tell much about quality or post registration support etc

A Sobha customer